vale tristram cary, 1925-2008
Greta Bradman sings Tristram Cary’s I Am Here at Adelaide Contemporary Music Festival
photo Mark Patterson
Greta Bradman sings Tristram Cary’s I Am Here at Adelaide Contemporary Music Festival
The editors were saddened to hear of the death of composer Tristram Cary, the pioneer of British electronic music in the 1960s who later spent much of his life in Adelaide. In the UK he composed for film (including The Ladykillers and for Hammer Films, Quatermass and the Pit, Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb) and television drama as well as making a pivotal electronic contribution to the sound world of Doctor Who. Cary built sound environments with multiple film loops, designed electronic sound studios and developed the synthesizer into the widely influential VCS3. In the mid 1970s he moved to Australia, directing the Electronic Music Studio at the Elder Conservatorium, Adelaide University, composing and setting up his own business. In 1991 he received the Medal of the Order of Australia. His legacy is to be found not only in CDs of his TV music, in Soundings, a CD collection of his electronic and electro-acoustic works, and in his recorded film music, but above all in Cary’s influence on the role of electronic sound in a huge range of musics and performance. Tristram Cary died in Adelaide on April 24. RT
RealTime issue #85 June-July 2008 pg. 50
